[Editor’s Note: Today we have a guest article from long time reader and contibutor Bud Parks. You may recall Bud recently submitted an excellent piece on football facemask design and terminology. Bud returns today with a new think piece on the way the sexes perceive colors differently. Enjoy! — PH]
by Bud Parks
Let’s get this out of the way now: the Miami Dolphins’ primary color is teal. Or turquoise. Or aqua, as the Dolphins themselves call it. Or whatever YOU want to call it. Teal consists of green AND blue. Nothing in the article that follows is meant to dispute this.
But a few years ago, I was over at a friend’s house with my now-fiancée, watching a game between the Bills and Dolphins. The topic eventually came up about the Dolphins colors, and I opined on how I’d always felt the Dolphins’ shade of teal was more green than blue, and how I always thought of them as a ‘green’ team. My friend’s wife was the first to speak up, saying how the Dolphins were very clearly a ‘blue’ team based on what she was seeing on the screen, even against the bluer-than-blue Bills, who were wearing mono-blue jerseys, pants, and socks. My fiancée was quick to back her up; the Dolphins have ALWAYS been a blue team to her…and then my friend backed ME up, saying how the teal is definitely more green.
The Dolphins have tweaked their shade of teal a number of times throughout their history, and their current shade is arguably blue-r than it’s ever been…
…though it’s a shade that has one of the largest ranges in the league of what the color looks like under different lighting.
But that hasn’t stopped me from still seeing them as a green team. I ended up putting a poll on my Instagram story later that week, hoping to have the majority on my side and be vindicated in what I’ve felt for pretty much my entire life. Even as a kid, on a green field vs a green team, they still felt like a blue-r shade of green, rather than the other way around. Green DID end up narrowly winning the poll, but the data showed a much more interesting trend than just a winner and loser: the results were split almost entirely down gender lines. Men think of the Dolphins as a green team, women saw their shade of teal as more blue.
A few more examples: Is the Mariners’ shade of teal ‘Northwest Green’ as the team calls it, or a more ‘electric blue’ as Jon Bois of Secret Base calls it in his video about the history of the team? Did the old shade of purple the Colorado Rockies used venture into indigo or even dark blue at times, depending on the lighting? And are tennis balls green…or yellow?
If this is starting to feel a little like The Dress from 2015, you’re not alone. (BTW, when The Dress first went viral, I could only see white and gold. But it switched on a dime for me to blue/black a few hours later, and I’ve never been able to see white/gold since.) But the Dolphins’ teal seems to be one of the better examples in SPORTS of how men and women can perceive color differently, and the potential biological indicators that might be the cause of it.
There are 3 dimensions to defining a color; hue, saturation, and brightness. Hue determines the rough placement of a color on the spectrum, saturation refines that placement a little further, and brightness determines how well a color reflects light. Pretty much all research on the topic has determined that men require a longer wavelength of light in order to distinguish between colors that are close to one another, so as the reds move into yellows and greens, women generally get better at distinguishing minor differences in hues and saturation.
WHY that’s true, though, seems to still be a matter of debate. Some suggest it has to do from way back in our hunter/gatherer days; with women being mostly gatherers, they evolved to tell the difference quicker between berries and other fruits that may have gone bad compared to fresher options in a harvest. Others suggest that individual testosterone levels may play a part; the more testosterone, the less one is able to discern small differences between, say, medium violet and medium-dark violet. This is also a popular theory as to why color-blindness is about 16x more common in men than women. There are more hypotheses still, but the science on any of them remains inconclusive.
Whatever the reason, it doesn’t necessarily mean that my fiancée and my friend’s wife are correct that the Dolphins are more blue than green…it just means that they see more blue than my friend and I do…the less blue we see is still accurate to what we perceive is there. It may even be more accurate to whoever the person who picked the Dolphins’ color saw themselves. But the next time your wife insists a paint color for the wall looks a certain way that you just don’t see, it may not be either of you going crazy. It’s just biology doing its work.
What do you all think? Have you always felt the Dolphins were more green than blue, or more blue than green? And seriously…are tennis balls green or yellow?
I think of the Dolphins as more green than blue, but my default image of the Dolphins is still Dan Marino, Zach Thomas, Jason Taylor et al, and I could also be associating the nearby Miami Hurricanes to confirm my bias and conclude “well of course it’s green-ish.”
I think about this with respect to Nike’s current iteration of Eagles Midnight Green. If I saw the color by itself with no context I’d want to say it is blueish teal. But, I associate it with the McNabb era jerseys and so I think of it as green.
I wonder If they had gone from Kelly Green to the current green, would I have a different impression of the color?
This is a good point. Nike has definitely skewed “midnight green” toward teal with more blue in the tone.
And I have always considered the Dolphins to be aqua, which is a shade of blue.
For the record, the genes that encode color vision are sex-linked. Women (most of them, anyway) have 2 X chromosomes, men (most of them, anyway) have 1. 2 X chromosomes equals less chance of color blindness and more color receptors. Not sure that testosterone does or does not play a role in it. I always find it funny when my wife asks me to give an opinion on choosing a paint color for a bathroom or dining room, then argues with me on subtle differences in color that I do not perceive. I finally told her that I know her color vision is better than mine (I am not color blind, but I am a man) so she gets the tienbreaker.
Definitely an interesting article! Good to know for future disagreements with the ol’ ball and chain that we’re both right!
Having said that, I’ve never thought of the Dolphins as a green or blue team.. they’ve always just been a teal team to me!
Kind of like how it would be sort of weird to call the SJ Sharks a green or blue team.
Interesting. Tennis balls are greenish-yellow. I don’t pay attention to football but from looking at those photos, I’d call the Dolphins turquoise, which is a blue shade to me. But I wouldn’t put it with blue teams or green teams– there are in-between colors that aren’t primary or secondary colors.
This is so interesting! I always sae the Dolphins as a green team, it never occurred to me someone might see blue.
And tennis balls are clearly yellow.
I think of aqua, turquoise and teal as shades of blue, not green. The Dolphins are definitely a blue team in my mind. I’m a man, FWIW.
Also dependent upon the media type, and with film, exposure settings. Two pictures of Larry Czonka. Both would have originated on film
Blue/Teal?
link
Green/Teal?
link
Great pics to add to the convo
I have brought this up half a dozen times on this very site. A large % of men are way more likely to perceive darker navy as black then women who can can very often clearly see blue. I’ve been a uni fan since the mid 70’s and have always perceived The Yankees as a black team (as well as Detroit Tigers, Red Sox, Chicago Bears and definitely now the Texans). My wife on the other hand – clearly blue. No question. Apparently somewhere in the early dev of that old grey matter, colors were less important to hunters and more important to gatherers. The trade off it some guys getting stung by the inability to see those hues. To this day The Yankees appear black to me. I did a test post on facebook and a lot of guys agreed, black. Women not so much.
The “midnight blue” worn by teams like the Yankees, Texans, Tigers and Bears definitely can appear black, but if you were to compare those jerseys/caps/helmets to one that is decidedly black (like say the White Sox or Raiders’ jerseys), you can definitely see the difference…but it’s not much.
And it wouldn’t surprise me if Nike had made those teams’ midnight blue even a shade darker since taking over the respective leagues’ clothing contracts.
Growing up, a number of my friends were convinced both the Tigers and Yankees wore black and not dark midnight. It was only when I showed them caps for teams that are definitely black (Orioles, Pirates, for example) that they could finally perceive the differences.
I have see the blue in Yankees digital and printed graphic, but the uniforms appear black. My eyes just would make the blue for my brain. Such a weird thing.
I “can” see. Not “have”.. d’oh!
Fascinating, because I see the blue in the Yankees, Tigers, Bears, etc.
The Dolphins, I kind of split the difference on them as blue-green. Compare the teal of the San Jose Sharks, who always have skewed blue to me.
As a Sharks fan, this is kind of a fun case for me because it’s the rare one where I actually have some gear of the team in conversation (even if it’s just tangentially here).
I would agree that they’ve always been more on the blue side–I won a game-worn Ron Sutter jersey back when I was a kid and still have that (still much too big for me!), but that old school uni was definitely the most blue they’ve been, I’d say. But then with newer stuff I do see some green creeping more in, but then like on a t-shirt, it’s hard to say just how accurate the color is on the logo, for instance (I have one from Adidas and one from Fanatics, and the latter just seems a little off, unsurprisingly). And then I have their Seals-esque reverse retro sweater and that one is interesting because to me it strikes me as the most “Dolphins” color of them all.
I’ve been having a helluva time lately trying to calibrate the colors on my laptop screen to get them to match (or at least look right next to) the external monitor, so this is not helpful. ;)
And for the record, I consider the Dolphins to be a “blue” team for purposes of the annual Super Bowl trivia/number-crunch. The Super Bowl VI (link and VIII (link) jerseys have always looked a lot more blue than green to me.
Miami Dolphins were a greener aqua team most of their history such as during Dan Marino era. When the dolphin logo ditched it’s helmet for the 2013 uniform redesign their color changed to a blue turquoise. I believe team explained the blue was closer color to waters off south beach than the green was. Though team still considers it aqua. Never considered Dolphins color dark enough during any era even playing night games to be considered teal.
As a male, color blind Dolphins fan this article really hits home. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve referred to their Aqua and green and my wife quickly corrects me saying it’s blue. She tends to do this with a lot of colors, so I just assumed it was my colorblindness or her desire to be right. Glad to see that I am not alone in this one.
I’ve always considerd them a lone wolf in the Aqua color spectrum, but while the new shade is bluer, they are more of a green team.
Wow— I wish I had written this article. All of the color perception and pigeonholing are conversations I’ve had with myself. To me, the Dolphins are a green team, the Yankees are black, and tennis balls are yellow. For that matter, the Lakers and Vikings are blue and the University of Texas is brown. To my eyes, that is.
I still have to remind myself that the Chicago Bears aren’t wearing black jerseys sometimes.
Lifelong Dolphins fan here. I was born and raised in the SF Bay Area, still live here, and have no reason to root for Miami, but when I was a kid, the combo of Dan Marino and the Dolphins’ color scheme took hold of my mind and never let go. The two main issues I have with the Dolphins’ current uniforms are 1) the lack of orange and 2) how blue the current shade of aqua is. Totally agree that in my mind, the aqua should be “more” green than blue, but the current shade differs so much game to game due to lighting.
I cannot tell you how many times I have had arguments over whether teal is bluish green or greenish blue (it’s predominantly green to my eyes). It’s interesting to know that there are legitimate biological differences in color receptors at play here, rather than just linguistic differences.
FTR, to my eyes, the Yankees and Tigers wear black, but a less vivid black than the White Sox; the Bears wear a navy so dark as to be functionally black in all but the brightest light. The Lakers wear purple, Forum Blue is a lie, the Dolphins and Sharks are very much green teams, and tennis balls are highlighter green.
Forum Blue was invented by Jack Kent Cooke because he loved purple but wouldn’t admit that he loved purple so people around him had to call it blue.
Dolphins: Green
Tennis balls: Yellow
Yankees: Blue
Lakers and Vikings: Purple
Texas: Orange
Oops, this was supposed to be reply to Walter.
Fascinating, right?
Love this. Nice job, Bud.
I think artists, real artists, people who have always painted or drawn simply because they love to interpret reality by painting or drawing, view things even deeper. The more serious you are about that passion and the more time you have been able to devote to it, the more abstract your vision and understanding of color theory becomes.
For example, the woman’s v men’s view of the flower both have a lot of the same colors to me, just a bit more washed out in the men’s photo. If I were going to paint it, I would use purples, blues, oranges, reds, pinks, indigo, black, white, peach…the list goes on. I break things down in my mind with the colors I would use to paint it or draw it in color. I hate trying to narrow something down to one color to describe it and that frustration shows in my Leo’s World articles sometimes, I think.
I once painted a ‘brown and white’ cow without using browns…no sepias, no umbers, none at all. I used pink, blue, red, violet, yellow, green…all kinds of different colors, layered on top of one another, to create the illusion of brown with all of the nuance of how light and shadow would affect it. Same with the ‘white’ parts, I didn’t use white aside from the very lightest spots (light reflection on the eye, etc.). I used pastel colors and even some darker shades when the white was in shadow. People were stunned when I told them I used all of those different colors because to them it just looked like a brown/white cow.
Anyway, great article!
Cheers!
Sounds like your cow painting used the concepts in pointillism.
I used colored pencils which are somewhat transparent, so you can layer colors like you can with transparent watercolor to create custom colors. It’s swaths of color, some with more pigment, some with less and built on top of one another.
Pointillism is the technique of dots beside one another to create the illusion of new color as you view it, but it’s not purple, it’s still a red dot next to a blue one and your eye reads it as purple from a distance. You can use opaque media for this.
What I do is more like blending the red and blue together to make purple, but I do it directly on the drawing/painting surface, so it’s not one pre-mixed shade of purple, but could be dozens of variations in a small area.
Hard to describe in a few words, maybe I’ll do a Leo’s World on it some day.
Cheers!
It’s why I suggested the “concepts in pointillism.”
That and the style you describe using both seem to use the component colors that make up another color to present the latter color. Individual dots or overlays – the result is similar. You didn’t use purple, but red and blue. The same way someone would use red and blue dots to appear purple from a distance.
Can’t directly reply to JMJ’s second comment, so I will leave it here as a reply to myself.
Every color you see is a mix of colors. In color theory, white in light is a mix of all, black pigment on substrate is a mix of all.
But that doesn’t change the fact that my method of creating color on a canvas or board is different than “concepts in pointillism”. The “component colors that make up another color to present the latter color” is *color theory*, not pointillism.
Pointillism is a method of creating a piece of artwork. So is a lithograph. So is an impressionist oil painting, layered watercolor painting, etc. See the difference?
Not even sure *why* you’re trying to argue that my artistic method is what you described. I developed my technique over a lifetime. You don’t know anything about it other than what I’ve told you via quick reply.
Note to people like this: I determine my life and reality. No one else can possibly know more than I do about my life, my artistic methods and/or what my favorite teams are. If you can’t see the difference between color theory and pointillism or between best and favorite, I can’t help you.
Another one, Southwest Airlines airplanes: I see purple. My wife says blue.
Southwest is def blue lol
Re: Southwest: Depends on the scheme. The original 2001 Canyon Blue scheme was always blue to me when new, but took on a purple tinge as it faded from UV exposure. The newer 2014 livery is most definitely a blue to my eyes.
Wow I must be the only man who sees them as blue
Dolphins are and have always been a shade of blue to me.
I always saw teal as its own shade, not blue nor green. Just like you wouldn’t consider orange yellow or red. But for the phins they have always been more on the blue side to me. and generally I would call tennis balls yellow. although a lot of this seems like pseudoscientific pointless gendering to me tbh :3
My Instagram poll with less than 30 total responses was absolutely pseudoscientific…which is why I went to find actual scientific studies to see if there was anything to the idea that men and women see color differently, the result of which the scientific community RESOUNDINGLY agrees that they do. Which hopefully makes the gendering a little less pointless :) There are LOTS of other studies by the scientific community beyond the couple I linked in the article, several of which I came across during my research during this article. I’d be happy to share some of them if you’re interested!
I see teal as teal. Not as blue or green.
Most tennis balls are green – Penn balls are yellow.
Growing up the Dolphins were aqua – greener that they are now. But using the color palette above, turquoise comes into play too. I don’t get really bogged down into the variations because it depends so much on whatever you are dealing with – like crayon colors, car paint colors, or industry wide standard/names of colors of matboard for framing. And I imagine pantone has its own names for colors too. It really depends on what genre/industry you are most familiar with. The color teal has really grown – so many colors, so many shades. And of course it depends for me on what colors it is paired with.
Wouldn’t aqua be bluer?
She’s not wrong, the Dolphins are absolutely a blue team in their current unis. It becomes incredibly obvious when they wear the throwbacks.
Bravo on this piece, btw, this is the kind of thing I love seeing in Uni-Watch.
Yeah, I always viewed their green/blue shade as more green than blue, until their current uniforms, which look much more blue, but as noted, seem to color shift depending on the lighting. If you go to Sportslogos.net or the GUD they still appear more greenish on the screen, and I am pretty sure they are using the official HEX colors of the teams, which must mean it is really something to do with the material and lighting now that create the more blue appearance?
Whatever the case I’ll agree with others in saying the 1990s through 2012 eras of aqua are what I think of when I think Dolphins, the current lighter and bluer color is not Dolphins aqua.
As a side note, looking up the color codes on Trucolor.net, it seems each variation of aqua the Dolphins have used, based on their RGB values, has always had a hair more blue than green.
1966-1989: Pantone 322C – R0 G115 B119
1990-2012: Pantone 323C – R0 G95 B97
2013-present: Pantone 321C – R0 G140 B149
The 1990s aqua was the darkest, and had the closest blue-green mix, while the current, Nike-era aqua is decidedly brighter and more blue than the original.
Great info, lines up with my perceptions of the Dolphins’ color, pretty much an even split between green and blue in the “old” days, with the new shade having more blue.
Even at their bluest they are green. Showed this whole article to my wife. She says they’re blue. Go figure.
This reminds me of the original Charlotte Hornets road unis – depending on the arena and lighting conditions, they could look like they were various shades of blue or green. Once I got my hands on an authentic jersey I was surprised how different it looked compared to what I’d seen on TV or in magazines.
Tennis balls are “Tennis ball” yellow. Chartreuse Yellow to be even more specific, but since we seem to like to deal in the absolutes of the primary or secondary colors – I see yellow.
As far as the dolphins, can neither be a choice? they wear some intermediary shade that ranges between blue and green (depending on the year and the fabric, I suppose). But they are neither a blue nor a green team. Packers and Eagles are Green. Bills, Giants, and some others are blue. Dolphins are in between and neither.
Anecdotal (and a bit of a related side note), but I was taught (an American growing up in American schools) that traffic lights are red, yellow, and green. American street signs clearly show yellow: link. My non-American family members have always referred to them as red, *orange*, and green, though. I had to do a double take when I first heard them say “orange” when they first saw American traffic lights. So as a kid, I always thought that traffic light colors were dependent on countries. It wasn’t until I *actually* took a look at the color as an adult that I thought that maybe the “yellow” light isn’t actually all that yellow, and actually might trend toward orange. Had I been born outside the US, would I be calling the “yellow” light yellow? Would I be calling it orange instead? Had I not heard of “Tiffany blue” before (link) would I be calling it green? Had I grown up in a country without American football, would the Dolphins be a green team instead of what I perceive as blue (and am I the only man so far who sees them as blue)? If I grew up in a media market without the San Jose Sharks in teal, would I be calling them a different color?
The middle light is definitely yellow, but there are some–and they have always been my favorite–that are a deeper amber color. I wonder if those are the ones perceived as orange by some of your family members.
Interesting you bring up amber. Here in California, the driver’s handbook and anything DMV-related only refers to the yellow light as amber, and I think that extends to the turn signal lights. And I’m assuming that extends to other states too
What color do you perceive your “Staff” button as?
Just curious, sits right in that goldenrod-orange pocket for me.
Definitely yellow, though if you wanted me to specific, I’d also say goldenrod
I have heard them referred to as amber instead of yellow, but never orange.
There have been some green lights that looked bluish to me, sort of like the aqua shade in the color blocks at the top.
Lots of interesting discussion and kind words in the comments, thanks folks! I think a few commenters may have missed my first paragraph though lol. No matter, though, just happy it’s generating reads and talk!
Thanks again to Phil for having me as a guest! Hopefully I’ll be back soon with another idea or two!
Bud
I definitely read the first paragraph, but I’d still echo other commentators that I can’t see the Dolphins as either a green team or a blue team! I have always thought of them as a sort of aqua team, and have never tried to pigeon-hole them into being either green or blue, and my brain can’t actually comprehend trying to do so, so I do think it is an equally valid 3rd view to duck out of the debate!
Although an interesting fact that one of the big reasons the Sharks are teal is that one of the staff was a big Dolphins fan and advocated them trying out teal when choosing colours link (the Dolphins have now moved on to influencing another Bay Area teams in the 49ers, with Brock Purdy wearing 13 in homage to Dan Marino!)
This article was a good read though, and echoed conversations I’ve had with my wife about football shirts: she bought me the following England navy shirt which looks black to me, but she was adamant it was clearly navy: link and there was plenty of debate about this mint Leicester shirt: link which my son has – I see it as a light blue and not green at all, but she said straight away it was mint – as advertised!
(Hopefully those links work!)
Great article, a real conversation starter. For me the Dolphins are a little more blue than green, but not as blue as the Hornets or Sharks. The Mariners teal is more green to me.
As far back as I can remember, I always seen the Dolphins aqua, teal, or whatever, to be green. Considering there have been 2 to 3 teams (counting when the Colts were in their division) that are/have been blue teams, I do not see the Dolphins color as any part of blue.
As for tennis balls, yellow.
Tennis balls are yellow. They are the same color as the yellow highlighter. There is a green highlighter and it’s a different color.
Woman here! To me both the current and previous Dolphins colors register as more green than blue. I guess I’d say that for pretty much any team that has a color somewhere between blue and green (Mariners, Sharks, Jags, Hornets). Maybe that’s somewhat because there are so many other shades of blue used in sports and less green that it just makes sense to me to include the marginal ones with green.
I think if you gave me color scale that transitioned from blue to green completely outside the context of sports, my answer to what’s blue and what’s green might be different.
This actually touches a larger question in linguistics – the Blue/Green Distinction. Some languages don’t distinguish between blue and green, using the same word for both!
link
Mariners: The dark blue navy road jersey..now and every other year has never matched their dark blue navy cap. It has bothered me. I’m a Seattle fan. Explains a lot.
Dolphins fan for over 30 years and I always considered their teal (or aqua) more green than blue. But an interesting eye/brain science examination, for sure!
Dolphins-green
Tennis balls-yellow
This is blowing my mind a little because I have never once thought of the Dolphins as anything other than blue. I honestly can’t even imagine how you could see them as green unless you also look at the ocean and call it “blueish green”
As a videographer and editor with 40 years experience, I can say that “accurate color” is a Quixote-esque pursuit. Our particular Sony cameras interpret the world as realistically drab colors with skin that has a deathly blue corpse-like tone, while our Canons warm the skin but can appear cartoonish with everything else in the frame. Post production colorbalancing can get your whites to “white” but doesn’t remotely hide the difference between the cameras, and if you’re too far off of white when shooting, footage can be unfixable, even though the whites can be adjusted to “perfect”.
I’m using lots of quotation marks here, because, continuing the process, if your monitor is off, then the whole thing is moot. Even the color on the wall behind your monitor can affect your eye/brain, which is why you don’t edit in a blue or orange room (editors choose gray), and the lighting in the room can alter things as well. All the old photos of the NFL are subject to what film stock they were shot on (Kodachrome/Ektachrome/various motion picture stock), processing, and resultant fading over time (then the scanning to get them to the web). Just Kiddin’s first Csonka photo above is WAAAAAAY rotated into the blue, as you can see by the grass/turf being nowhere near green and his skin tone being quite blue. There’s a hard blue edge light (or “kicker) on his neck and left cheek, which says either he’s under some intensely blue light, or this photo has faded or was always blue-ish from the start (Ektachrome, anyone?). This then makes the jersey appear “blue” in this particular photo. Factor in that the Orange Bowl’s lighting at night and Miami’s hot warm sun in day games were always fighting in photos to the point that many said the turf there had turned blue (and perhaps it had!), and you had a Miami Dolphins uniform that was a the perfect storm of color controversy for years.
The point is that color as a concept is dependent on so many things that it probably should be considered subjective in all cases, which is why their color scheme is so… umm… “engaging”.
All that being considered, my humble vote is:
Dolphins ’66-’12… Greenish
Dolphins ’13-present… Blueish
Browns ’46-’14… Orangish
Browns ’15-present… Reddish Awful
(male)
The Diamondbacks teal back when they were a purple team was very much darker and more green. Now their current “teal” I would never call teal. It’s very much aqua or turquoise.
I think I’ve always counted those my own “blue-green” or “green-blue” categories. Almost like these are sub-colors on the spectrum from green to blue. If I HAD to choose where I’d place the Dolphins (and — aquamarine is my all-time favorite color, the color that’s also on my UniWatch membership card), I’d go with…blue.
Male graphic artist here…so I deal with color a lot. I consider the dolphins aqua color a greenish BLUE. All the swatches at top of this article, I’d consider more blue than green. But there are many a teal that is more green, but most of the time dark teal is a 50/50 for me between blue and green.
Great article – certainly opens my eyes to how and why my wife and I can disagree on colors. When I think of the Dolphins I think of the Dan Marino era aqua, which in my mind is more green.
Tennis balls are more yellow.
Southwest planes are blue.
The dress is blue and black.
What color are the Dallas Cowboys pants? Whatever it is, it isn’t silver as they should be.
IMO, the Dolphins 1997-2012 aqua jerseys always looked more green and their 2013-present aqua jerseys look more blue.
Based on the color palette above:
Current color jerseys in daylight > turquoise
Current color jerseys at night > aqua
Throwback color jerseys > teal
As for the tennis ball color debate, add safety wear to this debate. Safety wear looks almost highlighter yellow but they’re typically listed as safety green.